My Highly Caffeinated Thought: A positively charming story packed with fabulously quirky characters, witty quips, and a love of books.

HOW TO FIND LOVE IN A BOOKSHOP is a touching story of love, loss, and discovery all centered around a quaint bookshop in a small village. Filled with wonderfully imperfect characters, a whole lot of heart, and a bit of humor, I dare you not to become enchanted with everyone you meet.

From the opening pages, I knew that this would be one of those stories that I just fell in love with. The combination of the various personalities, the picturesque surroundings, and Emilia’s journey was simply perfect. I just cannot express to you all how much I needed a book like this. The concept of overcoming loss and struggling to find your path is always something that I am drawn to. However, the way that Henry wrote this book allowed me to see more than just Emilia. She infuses her story not only with the ups and downs of reality, but also gave hope to each of her characters. The writing is eloquent and flows with such ease that I devoured this book within a day.

This book is for all the book loving romantics out there. Curl up with a cup of tea, coffee, or hot cocoa and enter the world of Nightingale Books with all its patrons.

The residents of Peasebrook are like planets drawn into the gravitational pull of the Nightingale Bookshop. They’re distinct and disconnected for now, but their orbital paths are soon to cross.

Julius Nightingale studiously chose Peasebrook for the location of his bookstore. His choice probably had more to do with financial success than it did on trying to have an impact on a small community. However, he became the trusted friend and confidante of his customers. After his passing, his daughter, Emelia, finds herself in the same position. She appreciates but doesn’t understand the generosity of her customers. Just like her father, she, and Nightingale Books, provides the community with so much more than reading material, and the residents would do anything to keep the shop open. While they are busily helping Emelia and memorializing Julius, the residents’ paths start to cross one another.

How to Find Love in a Bookshop is a book for book lovers. It is about books and people who share the love of books. It is also about love—love between parent and child, love between friends, and yes, love between spouses and lovers. The beginning of the book is a little chaotic--a bit like I imagined the bookshop to be under Julius’ management—with chapters introducing the various characters and their relationship with the bookshop. You have to wade through several of those chapters before author Veronica Henry begins to pull the storylines together, but once those planets’ orbits begin to cross, the Ms. Henry’s novel really takes off.

The characters range from cheese monger, lady of the manor, gadabout boyfriend, stay-at-home, to gardener, et al. The bookshop in some way impacts each of the motely cast, and many have a hand at keeping Nightingale Books going. As they lend a helping hand to Emelia, their lives cross and they find or rekindle love. The leisurely pace of the story allows for great character development. The ending is conveniently wrapped up in each of the potential couples finding love, but the story is no less charming for it. Whether intended or not, Ms. Henry’s novel gives readers a reason to frequent a brick-and-mortar bookstore and engage in a conversation with another booklover. You never know what could result from the encounter!

Emilia Nightengale is shattered when her beloved father passes away after a brief illness. She is left with an established bookshop, employees that are like family, and a small village that loves to read. There is Jackson, the young father who comes into the shop under the guise of picking out a book to read to his son. There is Sarah, the local Lady of the Manor, who had much more than a fondness for books that kept her regularly visiting the shop. There is Bea, the new mother who is desperate to return to her pre-baby life. There is Marlowe, a member of her father's quartet. Although he has a girlfriend, Emilia can't help but feel a connection to him. All of these people make Emilia feel loved and provide comfort in the days after her father's death. Especially when she discovered that the shop was in grave danger of failing. Even though she has no inclination to sell the bookshop to the real estate developer who hounded her father before his death, Emilia doesn't know how she is going to get the shop out of debt and turning a profit.

How to Find Love in a Bookshop was an absolutely enchanting novel. The characters are rich and diverse and easy to absolutely adore. Emilia quickly became one one of those characters that a reader wants to see with a happy ending. She loved to read just as much as her father but was more realistic about the business side of things. However, the bookstore manager in me kept saying "YOU ARE OVERSTAFFED!!!" In my mind, I was coming up with all of these ideas for Emilia to drive business, but in the end, an overflowed bathtub really forced her hand. All of the village folks had their own stories and all of them had some sort of connection to the bookshop. In the end, they all found the happiness they sought, but not the happiness they were first seeking. It really made for an engrossing read from start to finish.

Bottom line - How to Find Love in a Bookshop was an absolutely delightful ode to booksellers and book lovers everywhere. With familiar book titles littering the pages, any book lover is sure to fall in love with this novel just like I did!

Details:
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
On Facebook
Pages: 352
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication Date:8/15/2017
Buy it Here!

received an Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley for my unbiased opinion of the book. I fell in love with this story from the very beginning. It was saying hello to a new/old friend. A friend you haven't seen in awhile but takes seconds to get reacquainted again. This is the first book I've ever read from this author. I am happy to say, I'm gobsmacked! The book grabbed me from the very beginning and full of action packed side stories, it held me all the way the finish line. I look forward to reading more from this author. She has a permanent spot on my go list of authors!!!

Full disclosure…..the title of this book alone would make me want to read it and don’t even get me started on the charming cover. If you are a book lover and always dreamed of finding love in a bookshop then this is the book for you based on the title alone!

A quaint bookshop in the Cotswolds and a town full of people all of whom have found love (in one way or another) all thanks to the town bookshop, Nightingale Books. As cheesy as it sounds I feel like every single person should have a HEA in this story.

Everyone has a story . . . but will they get the happy ending they deserve?

Emilia has just returned to her idyllic Cotswold hometown to rescue the family business. Nightingale Books is a dream come true for book-lovers, but the best stories aren’t just within the pages of the books she sells – Emilia’s customers have their own tales to tell.

There’s the lady of the manor who is hiding a secret close to her heart; the single dad looking for books to share with his son but who isn’t quite what he seems; and the desperately shy chef trying to find the courage to talk to her crush . . .

And as for Emilia’s story, can she keep the promise she made to her father and save Nightingale Books? (summary from Goodreads).

Ok so first of all…..the story isn’t bad. It was like all of my favorite novels balled up into one. I loved the parallels of the characters in this book with some other recognizable stories. I think my favorite (and perhaps most obvious) was the story of Julius and Sarah as it mirrored the one of my favorite novels, Anna Karenina, which was also their ‘book’ that they bonded over.

There were plenty of other ‘love stories’ in the book with similar parallels. Shy mousy girl meets awkward cheese dealer who is her secret crush…..for some reason my mind went to Harriet Smith and Robert Martin in Emma.

This book reminded me so much of the movie Love Actually which is like my go to holiday film….nothing says Christmas like Hugh Grant as the PM. So this book was a lot like Love Actually but without the holiday cheer and Billy Mac holiday songs. Which means I should have LOVED this book, but for me it was just good….not an instant favorite.

For me there were too many characters to keep track of and once that I was interested in knowing more about but never felt like we fully explored them. For instance Jackson. I wanted to know way more about his back story. In many ways I forgot about him and didn’t feel like his story was that important and didn’t really serve a purpose for me. The story could have worked out the same with or without him in my opinion. Same with June and Mick….it just didn’t seem necessary to the overall story…..nice, but not necessary to the larger narrative.

A lot of the chapters floated from character to character without a real transition which I found distracting. I wasn’t sure when we were on to a new character arch for a few lines so I found that it slowed things down for me and made me kind of lose interest in some characters.

And lastly…..there was A LOT of emotion happening in this book. A lot of heavy emotion. Young college kid falls in love, becomes a father and love of his life dies tragically. Daughter loses father who is everything to her. Spouses who have fallen out of love. Asshole fiancé who doesn’t deserve his girlfriend. Unrequited love. Forbidden love. I mean….it’s a lot. I was expecting something a little more uplifting and less emotional.

I think if I had been more prepared for the magnitude of emotion from many of the characters then I think I would have enjoyed it better. In my mind the cover and the setting make me think of HEAs, charm, and fluffy rabbits in blue jackets….so to have something seeping in significant emotion was unexpected. It was very real and believable, but for me I was expecting something different I think.

I was also expecting this book to be an easy 5 star rating. I had to go with a 4, it was good but I think it needed a little more polish to earn a 5 star from me…..and a little more prep work in the summary would have helped inform the readers that the story they are about to read was going to be a little more heavy than a quaint book shop romance in the country.

And a complete side note…..thanks to this book, I discovered a new author, Jilly Cooper. One of the characters talks about all the Jilly Cooper books and I looked them up and was like OMG how did I miss something so tantalizingly salacious sounding? So I added them to my TBR list. That was an unexpected perk of this book.

Challenge/Book Summary:

Book: How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry

Kindle Edition, 336 pages
Published June 16th 2016 by Orion (first published May 19th 2016)
ASIN B014UWXLD6
Review copy provided by: Publisher/Author in exchange for an honest review.
This book counts toward: NA

Hosted by: NA
Books for Challenge Completed: NA
Recommendation: 4 out of 5

Genre: Romance, contempo lit, women’s fiction

Memorable lines/quotes:

"How to Find Love in a Bookshop" is a multi-layered story that centers on a bookstore in a small English town. First we have the story of Julian and Rebecca and it is a whirlwind romance that took my breath away. Then there is the story of Julian's daughter, Emilia, who inherits the bookstore when her beloved father passes away and she isn't sure that she will be able to do everything that she needs to do in order to keep the bookstore afloat. This book is the perfect book for when your heart needs a little squeeze.

I love the characters in this book! The romance between Julian and Rebecca is so amazing and so passionate! I loved seeing how Emilia deals with trying to make a new life for herself when so much of who she is and what she does seems to have been tied up with her father who did everything he could for her. Then you have all of the secondary characters like Sarah, who is trying to put things together for herself after a lot of friction.

There is something magical about books set in and around bookstores. Sure, being a reader, I love a good bookstore and Nightingale Books seems just like the kind of place that I would like to while away communing among the books. While much of the action is driven by the characters, the bookstore and the descriptions of what it's like factor heavily into this book. The bookstore almost felt like another character in the book. This book is definitely geared for those that believe in the magic of bookstores!

In 1983, Julius Nightingale becomes a single father after his wife dies from complications from childbirth to a baby daughter named Emilia. He decides to open a bookstore in the Cotswold town of Peasebrook in England. Thirty-two years later, Emilia returns home when her dad is dying of cancer. She promises him that she will keep the Nightingale Bookshop open and run it. Almost immediately after Julius passes away, local business owner, Ian Mendip, is at her doorstep to try and buy the bookstore so he can tear it down for a parking lot for new luxury apartments. Emilia tells him no right away. Emilia soon realizes that her dad’s bills and accounting system are a mess. She asks her best friend, Andrea, who is an accountant to look at the bookkeeping. Andrea tells her that bad news that bookshop is in financial trouble. The two along with other friends decide to find a way to keep the struggling bookshop stay open. Someone then tells her they have connections with Mick Gillespie, an older famous award winning movie star, who will have a book signing at her bookshop. In the meantime, Emilia joins a local quartet and begins to fall in love with Marlowe who in the group. Emilia begins to realize how important the bookshop is to all of her clients and their connection to the bookshop including:


• Sarah who is the wealthy owner of Peasebrook Manor and has been a patron of the bookshop for years. She has a secret that she
debates if she should tell Emilia or not.
• Dillion is Sarah’s gardener who is secretly in love with Sarah’s daughter, Alice. The only problem is that Alice is engaged.
• June who has worked at the bookshop forever. She is ecstatic to hear that Mick Gillespie is coming to the shop. In the 60’s, she had a
secret affair with him and wonders if she will remember her.
• Thomasina is a local chef and has a pop-up restaurant. She comes to the bookshop once a month to buy a new cookbook. She has a
crush on the guy from the cheese shop.
• Bea is in an unhappy marriage with a toddler. After she steals a book from Emilia, she feels guilty and returns it. She agrees to pay her
back by helping her remodel the bookshop.
• Jackson is divorced and shares custody of his son with ex-wife, Mia. He works with Ian. Ian tells him that if he can convince Emilia to sell
the store, he will get a big promotion. He asks Emilia for book recommendations for his son.

How to Find Love In a Bookshop is by English author, Veronica Henry. It was published in England last year. Since it ends during Christmas, it would make a perfect winter read to drink with a cup of hot chocolate. If you are looking for a light, easy romance, this book is for you. I can see it being made into a Hallmark movie. Four Stars.

Thanks to advanced reading e-book from Netgalley and Penguin Books in exchange for an honest review. The book comes out in the US this week.

A beautiful story of a small town, a bookstore and the lives of the townspeople. The story follows a number of people, with Emilia being the center. She returns to take over Nightengale Books after her father's rapidly failing health and death. We follow the lives of the townspeople who interact with Emilia and were affected by her dad and the bookstore where she grew up. I loved the book. It was thoroughly enjoyable book to spend a day in my hammock reading. It reminded me a bit of Chocolat. Highly satisfying..

How to Find Love in a Book Shop is the perfect book for when you are looking for a heart warming read. This is a book that feels like a warm hug and when you are finished you are satisfied and content with what you read. Nightingale Books is the place in the village where everyone leaves with a smile but when Emilia’s father dies and she inherits the store she is at a loss because it is losing money and she has to decide if she is going to keep it open. Enter a cast of characters from the village that are slightly lost and with the help of the bookstore are able to find their way. It is a struggle to find what is in your heart and reach for it but with the right book anything is possible.

Not the book for me, but Goodreads shows I'm in the minority. Each chapter is about a different character, and while I can see that all of the stories are loosely connected around Nightingale Bookshop, it felt too disjointed for me.

Emilia desperately wants to keep Nightingale Books open, especially now that her father has died and she is the owner and proprietor of the shop. In parallel stories, we see Emilia's life become intertwined with that of the bookstore and its regulars as well as seeing how her father's life as a young man led him to start the bookstore in the first place. Recommended for book lovers and for readers looking for a story about a small, close-knit community.

Perfect for fans of British contemporary fiction, such as Jill Mansell or Katie Fforde. Focused on the inhabitants of small British village, this is a quiet story of finding love and community. The heart of the town and the story is Nightingale books, whose proprietor has just passed away, and his daughter Emilia has returned to town to run the store. She discovers that her father, for all his love of books, didn't have much in the way of business sense, and she has a lot of work to do in order to get the store in order. Other story lines focus on friends and neighbors in the village, all of whom feel connected to the store. It's a cozy, sweet book all around, though there isn't much that is surprising or innovative about the story. This would be a lovely book to curl up with on a cold winter's day or for a relaxing porch read.

Lovely, lovely. I was afraid this would be a cheesy romance, and maybe it is, but I loved it so much. Well, there is literally a plot point that involves a cheese shop. Emilia Nightingale returns to the village of Peasebrook to take over her father's book shop upon his death. She is confronted with probably what you would expect, a disorganized pile of debt and a greedy real estate developer who wants to buy her out and knock down the building for a parking lot. The quaint English town is full of delightful characters who combine in various ways. Ms. Henry fills the book with fave music, books, and food that will make you drool. Brahms, Elgar, Faure; Moomintrolls, Cazalet Chronicles, Jilly Cooper; gooseberry chutney, loin of venison in puff pastry, pear mousse. A character in the town has the world's smallest restaurant. Named A Deux, she has one table in her home that she will set, cook, and serve heavenly food for two lucky people. There is a string quartet and a fine country home with a public garden.

I loved this in the same way I love Jan Karon's Mitford books. I just want to go there and let it be my happy place. I hope this will be the first of a lovely series, and I will read them all.

Lovely! A cool/old bookstore run by a romantic who loses his wife. He bravely raises his newborn daughter on his own. Years later she comes back to the bookstore and has life-changing decisions to make. Throw in an old family friend, a dark and dreamy musician... I'm not a romance reader, and this story didn't overwhelm with all the usual mindless inner monologues. Reading it was a treat!

My library has purchased this title to add to our collection. I'd recommend the book through RA for books discussions.

This is the first book I've read by Veronica Henry. It won't be the last. Anyone who loves reading books about books will enjoy this one. It's charming and delightful and perfecting enchanting - things we all hope for in a book and in a bookstore.

I loved this story. Emilia returns to her small town in the Cotswolds as her father is dying. Inheriting his bookshop, Nightingale books, Emilia has to struggle to keep open, or she can go the easy route and sell. There are a variety of stories, showing the impact her father and the bookstore had on their lives. I recommend this one!